The Outfit

by Russo, Gus

  The attendance of the local bosses was no surprise, given their obsequiousness to boss Accardo. But what was most impressive was, as G-man Roemer wrote, “any mobster of stature anywhere in the country attended.” With the press and undercover G-men outside taking names and photos, a virtual who’s who of organized crime paid their respects to the most successful mob boss in the country.1

  While the Outfit celebrated in Chicago, the Kennedy White House was in mourning. Only three months into the Kennedy brothers’ regime, the disastrous failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion threatened to permanently cripple the new administration almost before it was up and running. Although Jack Kennedy surely knew that he shouldered the lion’s share of the blame, since he had scuttled key components of the plan just days before its implementation, his knee-jerk reaction was to crack down on the CIA, the invasion’s operational planners. In this effort, the president harkened back to something his father had said: “Bobby can protect you.” Thus, at the request of brother Jack, Bobby agreed to place a name above Mooney Giancana’s on his “list,” Fidel Castro. The indefatigable thirty-six-year-old Bobby, with no experience in either the realm of intelligence or a criminal court, was now the boss of both the law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of the most powerful nation in the world. Few government careerists believed the nation would escape the period unscathed.

  Although Bobby Kennedy’s embroilment with Castro would sputter along fruitlessly, his war with Giancana was slowly driving the Chicago boss to self-destruction. Mooney’s skirmishes now with the G demonstrated to all that the swarthy wheelman from the Patch possessed not a fraction of the prudence of his masters, Accardo and Humphreys. Jeanne Humphreys remembers that when she’d first met Mooney, Curly had warned his rapier-witted wife, “Don’t be a wise guy with this fella. He’s not the same as the rest of the fellas. He’s different.” It was now clear that Bobby knew how to push Giancana’s buttons, using an illegal tactic that would have destroyed his own brother: He authorized the FBI to bug the bedrooms of Mooney and his lovers.

  Since his ascension to boss, Mooney Giancana, ignoring the lessons of Capone, had escalated his high-profile lifestyle, to the continuing dis- may of the Outfit brain trust. Of late, he had been squiring singing stars Keely Smith, after her divorce from bandleader Louis Prima, and Phyllis McGuire, of the popular McGuire Sisters singing trio. FBI bugs at Mooney’s Armory Lounge headquarters often overheard Mooney demanding that the restaurant’s jukebox be purged of all Smith records when Giancana was bringing over McGuire, and vice versa if Smith was in town. In the summer of 1961, Mooney was accompanying Phyllis as her group traveled the country on a concert tour. The unlikely lovers had met in 1960 at the gang’s Desert Inn Casino in Las Vegas. Over the last year, Mooney had lavished on McGuire, whom he nicknamed Wonderful, such love tokens as a brand-new white Cadillac convertible. He also arranged for Phyllis’ markers in the gang’s casinos to be erased, or “eaten.”

  With Giancana busy partying in Las Vegas, the chore of running the gang’s business there typically fell to the overwrought Curly Humphreys. The gang elder statesman watched in disbelief as Giancana’s name, linked with the likes of Phyllis McGuire and Keely Smith, appeared over and over in local papers. On one occasion, when a local journalist requested an interview with Curly, the hood vented his feelings to an associate at Celano’s: “I don’t give a shit who the newspaper guy is. Why should I talk to him, I said, and don’t you speak to any of our other guys.” When Giancana actually showed up at Celano’s, Humphreys seized the opportunity to set him straight. “Don’t play around with the newspapers,” Humphreys barked. “Just stand in the background. That’s what I would do, Moe. You stay in the background.” And on another occasion: “Giancana spends so much time away from Chicago when he has business here.” Once when Mooney missed a meeting, Curly was unnerved. The FBI eavesdroppers summarized what happened: “Giancana got a hurry-up call and appeared to be unable to make the appointment that night. Humphreys sarcastically felt the call was from one of Giancana’s girlfriends and appeared angered that Giancana let pleasure interfere with business.”

  The unsolicited extra responsibilities only accelerated Humphreys’ desire to retire, but he knew that was impossible. In one monitored call to his ex-wife, Clemi, in Oklahoma, Humphreys waxed nostalgic about life before the Kennedy crackdown. “It’s so bad now,” Humphreys said, “that the coppers are even afraid to take money because they’re afraid of the G . . . Honey, things were a lot different then, when you were here.” His daughter, Luella, remembered a constant refrain whenever her father visited Oklahoma. “I’m so tired,” he’d say. “I want out so bad, but I made my decision and I have to live with it.” The FBI heard him say, “I got to sit around and control the underworld here.”

  The G-men summed up the growing tensions within the Outfit hierarchy: “Humphreys and the other leading Chicago Hoodlums have been unhappy with Sam Giancana . . . Humphreys and Frankie Ferraro apparently met with Giancana’s predecessors, Tony Accardo and Paul Ricca, to discuss their feelings.” In their powwow, the Outfit old-timers, who were old enough to remember Big Jim Colosimo’s disastrous infatuation with a young singer named Dale Winter, worried about Mooney’s infatuation with singers Phyllis McGuire and Keely Smith.

  Mooney was not the only one shirking his responsibilities. Johnny Rosselli was increasingly absent from his Sin City post in favor of participating in CIA derring-do and bedding Vegas showgirls and Hollywood starlets. “Johnny became starstruck, like Mooney,” remembers Jeanne Humphreys. “And he talked too much. The very first time I met him, he laughed about how he had whacked the wrong guy once by mistake. Murray was appalled that he would talk like that to me.” In one Celano’s conversation with Giancana, Curly spoke of how he had to repeatedly discipline Rosselli: “I’ve known Johnny, and I’ve always kind of liked him. But after all, you have to be honest when you talk to him.” Curly recalled how he once scolded Johnny, saying, “Listen to me, you fucker. When I talk, this is it. Don’t you give me this shit. I’m one of the old-timers. I’m not a young punk. You’re talking to the wrong guy.” Humphreys added, “So then he changed his mind.”

  Thus, like Mooney, Johnny Rosselli began to fall increasingly out of favor with his superiors. In his stead, the Outfit’s other West Coast mouthpiece and labor relations consultant, Sidney Korshak, took up the slack. In 1997, Vanity Fair magazine devoted a sixteen-page article to the shadowy Korshak, calling him “one of the great hidden figures of twentieth-century organized crime . . . Las Vegas was one of his kingdoms.” But what the article failed to note was that Korshak was totally controlled by Chicago, and specifically, by his handler, Curly Humphreys.

  FBI wiretaps throughout the period detail Humphreys’ command over Korshak, who was by now also negotiating contracts for top-flight Hollywood entertainers, many of whom desired to pad their wallets with lucrative weeklong engagements in Sin City. One bugged conversation showed Humphreys worrying that Korshak was “getting too big for his britches.” Frequently, Curly would have to remind Korshak whom he worked for, as on the occasion when Sidney arranged a Las Vegas booking for singer Dinah Shore at a hotel not run by the Outfit. Since only Humphreys was allowed to contact Korshak, the idea being to insulate the valuable asset from gangster tarnish, it fell to him alone to straighten out Sidney. Humphreys, who continued to place calls to Korshak under the name Mr. Lincoln, was incensed and let Korshak know it.

  After ordering Korshak to keep Shore “out of the wrong places,” Humphreys added, “Anything you want to do for yourself, Sidney, is OK, but we made you and we want you to take care of us first . . . Now we built you up pretty good, and we stood by you, but anything else outside of the law business is us, and I don’t want to hear you in anything else . . . Anytime we yell, you come running.”

  Korshak indeed came running to the Outfit’s rescue whenever it perceived it was losing the public relations war. Such was the case with one of the underworld’s most vocal opponents, c
omposer and television pioneer Steve Allen. The Chicago native and creator of the talk show genre became an outspoken anticrime activist in 1954, when he chanced upon a photograph of a man who had been severely beaten after speaking out against the installation of pinball machines in a store near a neighborhood school. Allen, under the threat of advertiser desertion, produced a two-hour documentary on labor corruption for New York’s WNBT, from where his Tonight show originated. After the documentary aired, one of the interviewees, labor columnist Victor Reisel, was blinded by an acid-thrower, and Allen endured slashed tires on his car and stink bombs set off in his theater. Then there came physical threats. One anonymous caller referred to the Reisel attack and told Allen, “Lay off, pal, or you’re next.”

  But the hoods totally misread Allen, who was only emboldened by the threats. Over the years, Allen continued to take every opportunity to sound the clarion call, against not only the underworld, but also against its upperworld enablers. Allen made frequent trips to Chicago, where he spoke at benefits for the Chicago Crime Commission. His Van Nuys office contains more than forty binders labeled “Organized Crime,” holding thousands of notes and newspaper clippings. But the entertainer’s stance had a powerful impact on his career.

  “I was blackballed in many lucrative establishments,” Allen recalled shortly before his death in 2000. “I was only invited to play Vegas twice in my entire career.” This alone deprived Allen of millions of dollars from a venue he would have owned if given the opportunity.

  In 1963, Allen was hosting the syndicated late-night Steve Allen Show when he received a call from Sidney Korshak. “I was asked to take it easy on Sidney’s friends,” Allen recalled. Not long after politely refusing Korshak’s request, Allen felt the power of the underworld-upperworld collusion once again. “We had a terrible time booking many A-list guests for the show,” Allen explained. It was clear to Allen that Korshak, in connivance with Jules Stein’s entertainment megalith, MCA, had chosen to deprive the Steve Allen Show of the MCA talent roster, which at the time represented most of Hollywood’s top stars.

  Despite the talent embargo, Allen concocted a wonderful program with his staple ensemble of brilliant ad-libbers such as Louie Nye, Don Knotts, Bill Dana, and Tom Poston, as well as quirky personalities like madman Gypsy Boots, and then unknown Frank Zappa, who appeared as a performance artist, bashing an old car with a sledgehammer. But Allen’s 1963 run-in with Korshak would not be his last encounter with gangster intimidation.

  While the fuming Accardo and Humphreys kept the organization afloat in Chicago, the man who was supposed to be the day-to-day boss remained on the nightclub circuit. In July 1961, the Bureau learned through its Las Vegas bugs that Mooney and Phyllis were going to transit Chicago on their way from Las Vegas to Atlantic City. Alerted, the Chicago Field Office dispatched five agents to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on July 12, with the intent of driving Giancana over the brink by serving a grand jury subpoena on Phyllis, whom Agent Roemer disparagingly referred to as Giancana’s “mistress” (Giancana was a widower).2 The plan was to separate the pair, with the former marine boxing champ Roemer assigned to sequester the volatile Giancana, while the others interviewed McGuire. According to both Roemer’s and Giancana’s versions, the confrontation was explosive, with Giancana launching into a profanity-laced tirade. Not only did Mooney repeatedly scream “motherfuckers” and “cocksuckers” at the agents, but he did the same to innocent travelers observing the altercation as they walked by.

  At one point, Mooney chided the agents about their unrelenting probing into his private affairs. He asked sarcastically if they knew that he owned 35 percent of Marshall Field’s, 20 percent of Carson’s, and 20 percent of Goldblatt’s Department Store. He was then asked if he had any holdings in Las Vegas, to which he replied, “I own ninety-nine percent of Las Vegas. And in Florida I own the Fontainebleau, the Americana, and the Diplomat.” Although these were obvious exaggerations, there was probably some truth in all the boasts, but given the Outfit’s penchant for hidden ownerships, the truth will forever be elusive.3

  “I know this is because of Bobby Kennedy,” Giancana yelled at Roemer. Using hoodlum parlance, Mooney fumed, “You’re going to report this to your boss, and he’s gonna report it to the superboss . . . You know who I mean, the Kennedys . . . Well, I know all about the Kennedys, and Phyllis knows a lot more, and one of these days we are going to tell all . . . I’m going to light a fire under you guys and don’t forget that.” When Giancana was asked if he wanted the agents to call his aide Butch Blasi to give him a ride, Giancana said, “Yes, call Butch, and tell him to bring two shotguns with him.” And to make absolutely certain Roemer got the point, the furious boss snarled, “Do you know how many people I’ve killed? I might have to be responsible for another one very shortly.”

  After being cursed at for an hour, Roemer also lost his cool and began his own shouting match with O’Hare patrons, yelling out to the unwary baggage-toting travelers, “Look at this piece of garbage, a piece of scum. You people are lucky to be passing through Chicago - we have to live with this slime. This is Sam Giancana, the boss of the underworld here. Take a good look at this prick.”

  Before being reunited with McGuire and catching their connecting flight, Giancana walked up to Roemer and pounded a finger into the agent’s chest. “You lit a fire tonight, Roemer, that will never go out,” Giancana threatened. “We’ll get you if it’s the last thing we do!”

  At the Armory Lounge shortly after the confrontation (and with the G listening in), Giancana told an associate, “If a man would call me what I called them fellows [at O’Hare], I’d shoot them right there.” The longer Giancana stayed on the topic, however, the hotter his temper grew. In a few moments, it had reached its extremely low kindling point, prompting the gangster to scream, “I’ve had enough of that guy [Roemer]. I’m putting up a fund of one hundred thousand dollars to figure out how to get that cocksucker.”

  The absurd notion of whacking a G-man was brought before Giancana’s bosses, who quickly disabused the fiery gangster of the idea. Mooney had requested such a sanction before, and the reply from Accardo was always the same: “That would be counterproductive. The whole FBI would come down on us from all over the country if we hit one of them. Call it off. Now.” Giancana obeyed, although once out of earshot of his own “superbosses,” he vented to his driver, “I’m the boss of this Outfit. Fuck anybody else!”

  To be sure, Accardo and Humphreys had not turned their swords into plowshares, but their sanctioning of violence had greatly decreased in recent years, possibly due in no small part to their mellowing with age. Humphreys especially was deeply involved in charitable projects. In addition to his contributions to Native American children in Oklahoma, Curly was the sole executive in charge of the mob’s “family pension fund,” making certain that the gang widows of Capone, Nitti, Guzik, as well as Virginia Hill, were regularly compensated. Humphreys also found time to visit the terminally ill Frankie Ferraro daily at Wesley Memorial Hospital, and after Ferraro’s passing, looked after both Ferraro’s widow and his mistress.

  When in Florida, one of the few forays Humphreys took away from his home was to visit Mae Capone and her boy Sonny on Palm Island. Humphreys alone sided with Sonny when he requested a $24,000 loan from the Outfit to shore up his foundering Miami Beach Restaurant; Curly was once again outvoted by “the spaghetti benders.” Jeanne Humphreys remembers, “We had to sneak money to Mae. It was our own money.” The FBI overheard discussions concerning Curly’s anonymous contributions to the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and “various Catholic and Jewish charitable organizations.” With Libonati, Curly raised funds for Boys Town and helped to establish the American-Italian Welfare League in Chicago.

  Like Humphreys, Joe Accardo was frequently linked to unadvertised philanthropy and displays of conscience. Once, when an FBI informer named Bernie Glickman had ratted on some crooked fight promoters, he was badly beaten by Phil Alderisio. Worried that the Outfit had put a mur
der contract out on Glickman, who had steadfastly refused to name Accardo, Agent Bill Roemer, using Ralph Pierce as intermediary, sought a sit-down with the man himself, Joe Accardo, a man whom he knew so much about, but had never met. After consulting with boss Accardo, Pierce called Roemer.

  “In the Sears parking lot at North and Harlem at midnight,” Pierce told the G-man. After his midnight arrival at the suburban intersection about forty-five minutes from the Loop, Roemer waited ten minutes before Pierce appeared from a Sears doorway.

  “Walk west for a couple blocks,” Pierce instructed, before walking away. Roemer did as instructed, and after about two blocks, the most powerful mob boss in the nation walked out from the cover of a tree. The two men shook hands, and Accardo allowed Roemer to search him for a wire (the meeting was not authorized by Roemer’s superiors and he feared blackmail). “I’m the guy who should think you’d be wired,” Accardo joked. However, as soon as the agent touched Accardo, six men exploded out of two cars parked nearby.

  “Hold on,” Accardo ordered his men. “I think it’s OK.”

  Accardo suggested the two just take a walk and chat, and the two adversaries proceeded through the dark suburban streets “exchanging pleasantries,” according to Roemer, all the while tailed by Accardo’s cars.

  “What is it you want from me?” Accardo eventually asked.

  Roemer explained the situation with Glickman, assuring Accardo that the hood was not squealing on the boss.